Apple is prepping for a huge iPhone product cycle

“Analysts with BlueFin Research Partners (via Barron’s), shared some interesting information about Apple’s next-generation iPhone production plans.,” Ashraf Eassa writes for The Motley Fool. “Apparently, Apple — like so many investors and industry observers — is expecting the coming product cycle to be huge.”

“Apple is set to have its contract manufactures churn out 53 million iPhone models in anticipation of the coming iPhone product launch. Interestingly, of those 53 million iPhone models (that’s a lot of iPhones), only between five and six million units — or between 9% and 11% of the total output during the quarter — will be of the premium iPhone with OLED display. The remainder, the analysts reportedly said, will be made up of the company’s liquid crystal display-bearing iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus,” Eassa writes. “Apple often keeps prior-generation iPhone models available at discounted prices, so unless that practice has changed for this product cycle, some of that production could be of prior-generation iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models, as well.”

“However, that’ll apparently change quickly in subsequent quarters,” Eassa writes. “The BlueFin analysts reportedly believe that Apple will produce 44 million OLED iPhone models in the subsequent quarter (the first quarter of Apple’s fiscal year 2018) ‘and around 30 million each quarter thereafter.’ Keep in mind that these numbers appear to refer solely to the premium OLED iPhone and that total iPhone build activity in those quarters could be even higher than the 44 million/30 million figures mentioned.”

MacDailyNews Take: These are huge iPhone production projections that, if they’re anywhere in the ballpark, will easily result in record iPhone sales and, just as deliciously, searing pain for knockoff iPhone peddlers!

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Why all the production prep? Hasn’t it already been decided no one can afford to buy expensive iPhones? Many analysts have already declared there is no ‘iPhone super-cycle’ coming.

Only 53 million iPhones! Pffft. That’s hardly worth mentioning. All combined, Android manufacturers must move about 300 million smartphones every quarter. In India, with a population of 1.4 billion people, Apple probably sold about a dozen iPhones last month. How embarrassing is that?

Old news there magnificent, but so is the fact that almost all of the profit on phones is earned by Apple. Volume isn’t what counts, it’s earnings. Just as with everything else in life, they can’t have it all, but they have a considerable portion.